THE TURF. 
But we may be told that racing or rather betting 
on racing, supposed to be essential to its existence 
cannot go on without what are called the "legs" 
(described by an old writer on sporting subjects " as the 
most unprincipled and abandoned set of thieves and 
harpies that ever disgraced civilized society"); and 
that pecuniary obligations are commonly discharged by 
them with as much integrity and despatch as by the 
most respectable persons in the commercial world. 
Undoubtedly they are ; for if they fail to be so, 
the adventurer is driven from the ground on which 
he hopes to fatten. " I would give fifty thousand 
pounds for a bit of character," said the old sinner 
Charteris ;" for if I had that, I think I could make 
a plum of it ; " and the rogues of our day, though 
not so witty, are quite as knowing as the venerable 
colonel.* 
Woe befall the day when Englishmen look lightly 
on such desperate inroads upon public morals as have 
lately passed under their eyes on race-courses ! Do 
they lose sight of the fact, that whoever commits a 
fraud is guilty, not only of the particular injury to him 
whom he deceives, but of the diminution of that 
confidence which constitutes the very existence of 
society ? Can this familiarity with robbing and robbers 
be without its influence on a rising generation ? We 
say it cannot ; and if suffered to go on for twenty years 
* The word " rogue " is obsolete on the modern turf; the term " clever 
man " has superseded it. 
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